Trevor Cook on public relations, social media and politics

Category Archives: Online

An excellent lecture on the Internet and democracy

January 27, 2009 – 10:10 pm

This was a lecture given by Stephen Coleman, professor of political communication at Leeds University at the RSA in London at the end of last year. It includes discussion of the Obama campaign and a very good Q&A session. Here is the blurb from the Princeton site:
Coleman believes there is a disconnect between government and the people, [...]

By Trevor Cook | Also posted in Politics, Social Media, US Presidential Election | Tagged democracy, Internet, Marketing, Obama | Comments (1)

What will the world look like after the media is gone?

December 3, 2008 – 9:27 am

Bloggers love to speculate about the death of the media and the death of journalism. They’ve been doing it for years. Big-time bloggers, Jeff Jarvis and Dave Winer, are at it again. A new round of speculation, this time trying to envisage what our world would like if the media did actually die. Dave Winer, [...]

By Trevor Cook | Also posted in Internet, Media, Newspapers, Social Media, radio, television | Tagged blogs, Dave Winer, future of journalism, Jeff Jarvis, journalism, Media, New York Times, news, newspapers, radio, television, twitter | Comments (1)

Forget the ROI, just start blogging

November 14, 2008 – 12:52 pm

Here is the text of my remarks to a business communicators conference in Sydney today:
New technologies seem to follow a certain pattern of adoption.
First, they are rejected as useless.
We all know the amusing anecdotes that involve famous people predicting that telephones and computers were just fads.
Websites were not seen as necessary 15 years ago, but [...]

By Trevor Cook | Also posted in How-to do social media, Management, Media, Public Relations, Social Media | Tagged blogs, business, ROI, Social Media | Comments (0)

The revolution is over, the bloggers won

November 12, 2008 – 8:17 am

Duncan Riley had a good piece at the Inquisitr on that blighted word ‘blog’. It’s always been an ugly encumbrance and now it is also distracting because blogs are, after all, just websites. The good things about blogs and that make them distinctive are:

they can be updated (published) easily and directly by ordinary people with [...]

By Trevor Cook | Also posted in Advertising & marketing, Media, Public Relations, Social Media | Tagged blogging, Duncan Riley, Economist, Inquisitr, Naked Conversations, Nicholas Carr, PR, Wired | Comments (2)

Sunday lunch, Al Aseel, Greenacre

November 9, 2008 – 4:42 pm

We had a great lunch at this place today with some friends including Paul Caggegi from The Process Diary, a blog and podcast focused on ‘the how it’s done of film animation’, a niche interest which is getting Paul some serious international attention. I love hearing about all the different interests that can find expression [...]

By Trevor Cook | Also posted in Food & drink | Tagged blogs, food | Comments (1)

Some interesting Saturday links

November 8, 2008 – 8:54 pm

Branding 101: How to Promote Your Blog Like the Big Guys Do
Social reader
Twitter Goes Mainstream: A lot more people — and businesses — are finding new ways to tweet
Perhaps iPods Aren’t Replacing Radio
Nearly One-Third of Web Users Watch TV While Surfing
Google at 10: Searching Its Own Soul
Palin denounces her critics as cowardly

By Trevor Cook | Also posted in Advertising & marketing, Business & economics, Internet, Media, Public Relations, Social Media, US Presidential Election | Tagged blogging, Google, iPod, Palin, radio, Social reader, twitter | Comments (0)

Lindsay talks up Government 2.0, plans online public consultation

November 6, 2008 – 8:39 am

I missed this in the great excitement of the US election yesterday, luckily Net Traveller picked it up:
In May 2008 the Minister for Finance and Deregulation, Lindsay Tanner, talked about applying Web 2.0 to government processes in a “Keynote Address to the e-Government Forum“. He is more recently reported to have said the government would [...]

By Trevor Cook | Also posted in Government 2.0, Internet | Tagged Government 2.0, Online, Oracle, public consultation | Comments (0)

Australian business invests nearly $18 billion in digital services: study

November 3, 2008 – 6:58 pm

Australian businesses invested more than AUD$17.9 billion dollars on digital services in 2008, a survey by the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association (AIMIA), IBM and Hyro has found.
According to the first annual AIMIA Digital Services Index™, to be announced on Wednesday,, revenue generated through digital services as a proportion of total revenue jumped by 17 [...]